cook islands

庫克群島The Cook Islands (Cook Islands Māori: Kūki 'Āirani)^[6] is a self-governing island country in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand. It comprises 15 islands whose total land area is 240 square kilometres (92.7 sq mi). The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1,800,000 square kilometres (690,000 sq mi) of ocean. New Zealand is responsible for the Cook Islands' defence and foreign affairs, but they are exercised in consultation with the Cook Islands. In recent times, the Cook Islands have adopted an increasingly independent foreign policy. Although Cook Islanders are citizens of New Zealand, they have the status of Cook Islands nationals, which is not given to other New Zealand citizens. The Cook Islands' main population centres are on the island of Rarotonga (10,572 in 2011),^[8] where there is an international airport. There is a larger population of Cook Islanders in New Zealand itself; in the 2013 census, 61,839 people said they were Cook Islanders, or of Cook Islands descent.

name

- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/05/cook-islands-change-name-remove-association-captain-cook/ the tiny Pacific nation of Cook Islands plans to change its name to drop the reference to the British explorer Captain James Cook in favour of a title that reflects its “Polynesian nature”. The group of small islands, about 1,900 miles northeast of New Zealand, was spotted by Captain Cook in the 1770s and became a British protectorate in the late 1800s. Since 1965, it has been autonomous but electively deemed to be in free association with New Zealand. The Cook Islands government initially set up a committee to find an indigenous name that would sit alongside its existing title. But the committee members backed abandoning the honour to Captain Cook and adopting a standalone name in the local Maori language. "When the committee members, which include Cook Islands historians and people with deep traditional knowledge, met we decided it was time we change the name of the country," committee chairman Danny Mataroa told AFP. Mark Brown, the deputy prime minister, supported the change but said it would need to involve the nation’s 12,000 residents. In 1994, the Cook Islands held a referendum to change the name to Avaiki Nui but the proposal was resoundingly defeated.